Hout Bay Ingoma Choir

The Ingoma Choir was set up in 2017 as a social enterprise to celebrate the beauty of African choral whilst uplifting the community of Imizamo Yethu near Cape Town. Since then it has established itself as one of the most successful township choirs in the country, having performed at countless weddings and other private events, appeared on national and international TV, been onstage at the KFM K Day, and featured in TV and radio adverts for Ackermans, Shoprite, Checkers and Spur.

The music is mainly traditional, unaccompanied choral, sung in isiXhosa and other African languages, with occasional drumming - and we also explore Western pop, Classical and other genres . Our tagline is #GoosebumpsGuaranteed, because the beauty of our harmonies is so powerful.

There are about 25 members of the choir, men and women aged between about 16 and 45, many employed in restaurants, petrol stations and supermarkets, with others in community and teaching roles, studying at school or college, or unemployed. The choir was originally conducted by the legendary Zamile Gantana, whom we lost tragically to Covid in 2020. Since then we had the very good fortune to be able to engage Lunathi Ncamani, a highly experienced conductor, and member of the Stellenbosch University music faculty.

We are a registered non-profit company and proceeds are split between conductor and members, with a proportion re-invested into the project.